


but under our ceilings is much more revealing

by horacethecorgi



Category: Shameless (TV), Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Parent Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 10:58:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horacethecorgi/pseuds/horacethecorgi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey isn't surprised when she breaks because he's been watching her slowly come apart his whole life.</p><p>(It doesn't make it hurt any less.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	but under our ceilings is much more revealing

**Author's Note:**

> i just needed to write my sad feelings away and hey, mickey is a pretty good subject for sad feelings. 
> 
> this was originally going to be part of the kid!fic series, but i decided that i wanted the relationship between mickey and his mother to be different there than what i've written here.

Mickey is the one who finds her, drunk off her ass and drugged out of her mind. She’s laying in the bathtub with her knees pulled to her chest. One of her arms hangs over the edge and Mickey can see her busted knuckles, cut up and bleeding, from where she broke the mirror. Her makeup is streaked down her face and she looks so fucking tired. Mickey feels like he’s going to vomit.

“Mom?”

She smiles at him, her split lip pulling open and beginning to bleed again. She doesn’t even notice.

“Hey, kiddo,” she says, her voice hoarse and weak, “C’mere.”

Mickey sits beside her and takes her fucked up hand in both of his. He rubs away the dried flakes of blood, hears her sharp intake of breath, and looks at her. She’s watching him with her wide blue eyes, her dark eyebrows drawn down. Mickey looks back at her hand, swallowing hard. He can still feel her gaze on him.

She sighs and pushes her hair out of her face. Her feet squeak against the bottom of the tub as she splays her legs in front of her. Mickey can see the bruises on her thighs, how they’re so fucking dark against her pale skin and how large they seem against the small backdrop of her legs.

“You’ve always been my favorite,” his mom tells him, “My good boy even when you were being a little shit.”

Mickey doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at her hand and stroking his thumb across her knuckles. The cuts aren’t deep and the bleeding is minimal, but they still make something inside of him hurt. It’s different when his brothers get fucked up, different even when Mandy skins her knees and comes crying to him for a Band-Aid. Seeing his mom like this, with her split lip and busted knuckles and those _fucking_ bruises; it makes him want to tear something apart, to ruin it, like his dad is doing to her.

Her hand is shaking in his and, when Mickey looks at her again, she’s crying, hard, but not making a sound. Her skinny shoulders are hunched, barely moving, and he wishes she would just let it out. It scares him, how contained it is. He gets off the floor, still holding her hand, and sits on the edge of the tub.

His mom reaches out for him and Mickey wraps an arm around her, burying his face in her hair. Her tears soak through his shirt, but he doesn’t care. He bites his lip and holds her tighter, as if he can push all her pieces back together. _Fuck_ , he thinks, and wishes for a miracle.

(His miracle comes two weeks later, in the form of an overdose. His dad drinks until he passes out, his brothers get fucked out of their minds, and Mandy cries herself to sleep. Mickey waits until everyone else is down for the count before he roots through his parent’s closet and pulls out one of her old cardigans. She hadn’t worn it for months, but it still smells like her. Mickey tucks it around his pillow and dreams of her hugging him.

“You were always my favorite,” she says and, in his sleep, Mickey smiles.)

 

 

 


End file.
